Amnesia
by blvdgirl
Summary: Rose gets amnesia and Nine & Jack have to convince her that they're friends. Oneshot.


Disclaimer—I seek to make no profit from the Doctor Who name or characters save my own enjoyment.

A/N—I watched _Dead Again_ last night, and this little idea hit me, inspired by what happens when they advertise that Emma Thompson's character has amnesia... It's just a oneshot, and it's meant to be a bit of fun for Nine, Jack, & Rose. I hope that you enjoy it. And, of course, I would love feedback if you have time to review.

AMNESIA

The Doctor was standing in the middle of Times Square. It was a busy Saturday afternoon, April 26, 3243, and there was celebration raging all around him commemorating the completion of the rebuilding of New York City following the devastation of WWIV, no small feat as the reconstruction spanned three centuries. However, unlike the crowd around him, he was no longer enjoying the festive atmosphere. In fact, he was horribly worried.

Jack had returned to their designated meeting spot over 40 minutes ago sans Rose. He and Rose had decided to do some shopping while the Doctor checked out an anomalous radio signal. The Doctor had been quite certain that the signal was a nothing, a blip, and twenty minutes of investigation had revealed it to be just that. But now, with an anxious and slightly sheepish Jack at his side, he was doubting his judgment in letting his jeopardy-friendly companion out of his sight.

Apparently, Rose'd wanted to linger over lingerie while Jack had wanted to stop into a pub for a drink. Stupid apes! Not that he blamed Jack in theory—he'd been shopping with Rose, and knew for a fact that it was enough to drive even the most patient man to drink—but how could Jack be so careless to lose her? And how could he have been so stupid as to let him?

The Doctor knew without checking that Rose was now 56 minutes late for their scheduled rendezvous, and that, according to Jack, Rose and he had been separated for nearly two hours. Two hours! He couldn't stop his imagination from supplying hundreds of horrors in which Rose could have become entangled in two hours time in a strange city during a strange century, and he worried, not for the first time, that he couldn't really take care of her as she deserved.

It was this sort of inner-berating that Jack interrupted when he pull on the Doctor's coat sleeve. "Doctor," he said pointing a finger up to one of the large screens that surrounded the square, "I don't believe it."

The Doctor looked up and saw his Rose, or a picture of his Rose anyway, wearing a white hospital gown and a bandage above her right eye. Underneath the picture ran a caption: YOUNG WOMAN, LATE TEENS – EARLY TWENTIES, AMENSIAC, VICTIM OF HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT, CONTACT ST. MICHAEL'S MEDICAL FACILITY WITH REVELENT INFORMATION REGARDING THE PATIENT OR THE THIRD METROPOLITAN POLICE PRECINCT REGARDING THE ACCIDENT. The message ran three times, and then Rose's picture was replaced with a toothpaste advertisement.

Jack looked at the Doctor, waiting for him to react to the message. Hit-and-run and amnesia, and all on his watch. Not only was he feeling guilty, he also knew that the Doctor was fighting hard to control his fury and that at any moment the ax could fall on his neck. But the Doctor surprised him by simply saying, "Well, let's go collect her then."

And he started pushing his way through the revelers with Jack on his heels. "But aren't you… well, angry? At me? " Jack asked.

"I'm a little put out, yeah." The Doctor responded, not looking back. "But a hit-and-run, that's not so bad. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'd imagined about a hundred scenarios which would have been much, much worse during the last hour…And amnesia's easy." Then he did look back. "No, Jack. I'm not angry at you. Can't keep her from wandering off myself, and I'm… well, me. Let's just go get her… Now, if we come across the people that hit her, then maybe you'll get to see some anger." The two men continued pushing their way through the crowd for several minutes when the Doctor stopped again and looked around, "Just where is St. Michael's anyway?"

0o0o0o0o0

Three hours later, the Doctor and Jack entered Rose's room at St. Michael's. There was their Rose, sitting in the hospital bed flipping through a magazine.

Jack cleared his throat, and Rose looked up. But instead of joy or recognition or even curiosity, her face immediately clouded in annoyance. "You've got to be kidding me." She pushed her comm button and said, "Oi, Nurse, I asked you to not let anymore in for now."

"I'm sorry, dear," responded a maternal voice over the comm. "These two had paperwork… Shall I come in?"

"Please do." Rose replied, her voice betraying her tiredness. Then, she looked at Jack and the Doctor. "Ok, who am I then? Wife? Girlfriend? Lover? Concubine? Believe me I've heard 'em all in the last couple of hours… Well, come on then, who are the two of you? And what claim do you intend to lay?"

"No claim." The Doctor said cheerfully. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Captain Jack Harkness. And you're Rose Tyler. You're my plus-one, my companion."

"Companion?" Rose questioned skeptically. "And what does that entail?"

The nurse entered the room during this response and crossed to Rose's side. "I'm sorry gentlemen, but you'll have to forgive our patient. It can be quite frustrating not knowing who you are, and she's had quite a few visitors in the last few hours."

"Mostly men, I gather," Jack replied cheekily.

The nurse nodded solemnly and laid a reassuring hand on Rose's shoulder. "Well, there've been a few women too but, yes, mostly men. Since the news broadcast, the hospital has fielded nearly 200 phone calls, and 62 people have come in claiming to know her…"

"Well, you can't blame them for trying." Jack interrupted with a winning grin. "Our Rose is a keeper."

The nurse continued, "It's been a very unfortunate business for everyone involved, and in retrospect it seems clear that the broadcast was a poor idea. But unknown people are so rare these days that we didn't know what else to do."

Rose was giving the appearance of flipping through her magazine, but she'd been listening. This statement by the nurse peeked her curiosity, "Why is it unusual? Nobody else stupid enough to get hit by a passing car?"

"Oh no, dear," the nurse placated. "Amnesia occurs often enough. It's just that we had no way of identifying you—you've no ident chip and your retina scans aren't in our database."

"Am I foreign then?"

"Of course, dear, your accent told us that right off, but our database is worldwide and glitches in the system are very rare indeed."

"So, I'm a glitch?"

"Apparently so, Miss Tyler. But, not to worry, these gentlemen have identified you and have come to take you home."

"But, if you've no proof who I am, how do you know that these two are telling the truth?" She eyed them warily.

The nurse looked flustered, "These gentlemen have a copy of your passport. You're a member of an international surveyor team—quite an accomplishment for one so young."

The nurse soundly duly impressed but Roes was unconvinced. "And what?" Rose waved an arm at the bags and parcels piled on nearby chair. "I was just shivving off work to go shopping?"

"Now Rose, we're not trying to pull one over on you? I'm the Doctor and this is Jack and we know you. See here," he pulled the psychic paper from his pocket and waved it under her nose. "A copy of your passport, just like the Nurse said."

Rose eyed the paper, her eyes narrowing. Turning to the nurse, she said, "Could you give us a minute?"

"Certainly, Miss," replied the nurse. And she exited the room, giving Jack an appreciative smile as she went.

"So, now that that's cleared up…" began Jack making to collect her shopping bags.

"Hold it," Rose voice echoed in the tiny space. "Nothing's cleared up." She looked at the Doctor. "All that piece of paper said was that I should just trust you and go with you, in plain handwriting like anyone could do; it didn't look a thing like a passport."

Jack smirked, "Gotta be careful with that psychic paper."

"Oi," the Doctor retorted looking a bit put out as he pocketed the apparently useless psychic paper, "It's not like I told her that I'm single and work out."

Jack smirked, "Too bad." He winked at Rose, "Usually works for me."

Rose tried to quickly smother the laugh that erupted at this comment, but Jack was encouraged. "Ok, Rose. You travel with us. This morning while Mr. Useless Paper here was checking into an uninteresting radio signal, you and I went shopping together, and I can prove it."

"Ok," Rose responded, her tone challenging, "Do it, then."

"I can tell you the exact contents of all but two of those bags, and I think can guess the contents of that pink one even though I wasn't with you when you finally made that purchase. I can also tell you the complete contents of your pockets when they brought you in. Oh, and just for good measure, I can tell you what color underwear you're wearing."

Rose raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms waiting.

Jack likewise crossed his arms and assumed a nonchalant posture, leaning back on his heels. "The large brown bag is from a department store. You bought a turquoise sweater and a pink hoodie. The smaller brown bag is from a newstand. You bought five magazines, two chocolate bars, and, ironically enough, a new toothbrush—purple. In that blue bag is a pair of blue jeans. In the gray bag, are a jeans jacket and a pair of black slacks." In the little black bag are an assortment of hair barrettes, clips, and hair-ties and a pair of earrings. Now, as for the pink bag, I can't be certain 'cause like I said, you and I split up eventually. I just couldn't linger over those ridiculous frilly knickers a moment longer—and if you remembered my level of indulgence when knickers are involved, you'd realize that you were taking far, far too long a time. But, I imagine that after all that deliberation and debate, you fell for the whole buy 5 get the 6th pair free line, so my guess is that you have six panties and a perfume in the pink bag. That green bag there… That's anybody's guess."

As Jack had been listing her purchases, the Doctor had been emptying her bags onto the bed to prove that their story was legit. But even after the Doctor filled her lap with the frilly knickers, her expression was schooled, and she seemed unimpressed. "What about the pockets?" She prompted.

The Doctor interrupted as Jack was about to speak. "You had a cellular phone; a lip gloss; one credit card—green plastic; a ten-pound note which you always insist upon carrying though it'll do you no good most places we travel, but you'll not be convinced; and a small yale-lock key."

Rose eyed both men cafefully, trying to read any apparent signs of deceit, but at last she had to concede that she saw none. Clearly, she knew these men. Jack's listing of her purchases had been impressive, and the Doctor'd gotten the contents of her pockets perfectly. Still, she was curious: "And the undies?"

"Pink." Both men said in unison.

"With little silver fish," Jack added.

"Are they fish?" the Doctor asked his friend. "I thought they were flowers."

"Nope. Fish. Chubby little fish swimming against a sea of pink cotton." He sounded almost wistful.

Rose modestly shifted the blankets that were gathered around her waist and lifted the hem of her hospital gown to check. "Hmm. You're right. They do look a bit like flowers… All right then." She looked to the two men. "What now?"

The Doctor and Jack smiled wide smiles of relief. "First off," the Doctor said, "I'm going to go sign a paper to get you discharged. And you're going to get dressed."

"I'll stick around and help if you want." Jack said flirtatiously.

Rose looked puzzled but not unflattered by the man's wolfish grin.

"Jack's coming with me." The Doctor added, not flinching. "We'll be back in about five minutes, and then, well, after that we're taking you home."

"Home." Rose echoed, her tone a bit blank.

"Home," the Doctor affirmed. "And don't worry about your memory. Once we get you home, it'll take me less than a moment to sort out."

"You can give me my memory back?"

"Yep."

"Just like that?"

"Yep. No problem. Memory's easy for a human." He put his hand firmly on Jack's shoulder. "Right then, we'll be off. See you in a few, then."

"See you Doctor," Rose said, rising to her feet. "Jack." Then, as she was pulling on her jeans, she paused, a very puzzled expression adorning her face. "For a human?"


End file.
